


Call It What It Is

by LeFox



Category: Final Fantasy XIV
Genre: Fluff, M/M, Morning After
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-07
Updated: 2020-12-08
Packaged: 2021-03-10 01:53:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,403
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27946334
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LeFox/pseuds/LeFox
Summary: Sanson has one very important question: "What is this? What are we doing?"
Relationships: Sanson Smyth/Guydelot Thildonnet
Comments: 2
Kudos: 54





	1. Part One

**Author's Note:**

> These were a couple of quick "I just want to write again" hash-outs on Tumblr, but I liked them enough to share.

_I didn’t think you’d still be here_.

Sanson sits adrift in his own bed, hands cradling a cup of coffee - coffee Guydelot prepared for him, _in his own kitchen_ no less - as though he requires it to retain some grasp on the world around him. Perhaps he does. The world has _changed_ since yesterday, in some vast and fundamental way, and though Sanson Smyth has never been a man to shy away from daunting challenges, still he finds it difficult to look directly at _this_ one; no, it is easier by far to stare into the coffee mug.

It’s easier than acknowledging the man stretched out beside him on the bed, still gloriously and unrepentantly naked, still tousled from their very… _warm_ waking, and the night before.

The night before…

_ Madness. It isn’t like me to be reckless. _

But it was so easy to be reckless with Guydelot’s lips on his, Guydelot’s arms crushing him close; it was the easiest thing in the world. Easier still to want more. Easy to invite him home, to surrender to recklessness and desire all at once, and find new ways to make his bard sing.

_But I didn’t think you’d stay_.

And what does it mean that he has? Sanson feels himself shivering despite the heat of the cup in his hands. He’d expected… what? A quick, stealthy escape in the dark hours of the morning, and then they’d never speak of this again. An awkward departure, apologetic and abashed, and they’d pretend it never happened. Not…

“Cold?” A shift, a heavy weight moving across the bed, all on the fringes of Sanson’s awareness, until Guydelot settles behind him, and suddenly he is the _whole_ of Sanson’s awareness: the muscles of his chest against Sanson’s back, lean archer’s arms around his middle, Guydelot’s breath stirring Sanson’s hair, and it feels-  


It feels good, it feels easy, it feels _right_ ; it feels like they’ve done this a thousand times before, exactly this. Guydelot hums quietly, his cheek resting atop Sanson’s head, content and comfortable. If any of this troubles _him,_ Sanson cannot sense it: Guydelot seems content to remain as they are, here, like this, until the end of time. A knot of uncertainty loosens, but does not fade entirely.

“What is this?” He doesn’t mean to say it, but the words burst out anyway, clumsy, shattering the moment’s peaceful stillness. “What are we doing?”

Guydelot’s humming turns thoughtful… but he does not release Sanson; he does not move. “How do you mean?”

How _does_ he mean? “This.” He hesitates. “Us.” He clears his throat. “Is this… for fun? For love? How _serious_ do you mean to be about-”

“Feels like it’s just for fun to you, does it?” There’s a deep warmth in Guydelot’s voice ( _he has such a beautiful voice_ , Sanson thinks, and knows he is ensnared), and when he kisses the top of Sanson’s head, the sensation travels all the way down his spine, curling warm and tingling somewhere at his core.   


No, it doesn’t feel like it’s just for fun; no, it doesn’t feel like it’s hollow pleasure; no, it doesn’t feel casual. 

“But-” But there is a part of him, the part that clings to order and precision and control, that demands the solid understanding of _labels_ , of comfortable boxes in which to fit things. “But what _is_ this?”  


“You said it, didn’t you? Us.” Guydelot plucks the cup from Sanson’s hands with effortless ease, placing it safely on the nightstand so that he may lie back, pulling the smaller man along with him to lie at his side, warm and familiar for all they’ve been lovers for only a single night. “That’s enough, ain’t it?”  


Uncertain - and yet suddenly _very_ certain, all at once - Sanson asks, “Is it?”

“Shouldn’t it be?” In the morning light, Guydelot’s blue eyes look like polished jewels, no hint of shame or uncertainty of his own. “Mayhap I just want to cherish our time right now, and figure out the rest as it comes. Play it by ear, as it were. We’re _us_.”   


“Us,” Sanson repeats, and the word untangles the knot of anxiety, leaving something warm and fluttering in its place. “Us, then.”


	2. Part Two

If he’s not going to be thrown out, he’s in no hurry to leave.

Not even bothering to get dressed just yet - his clothes are still somewhere on the other side of the room, discarded sometime yesterday afternoon and not so much as glanced at since - Guydelot settles back into the bed, stretching like a preening, self-satisfied coeurl. Given half a stroke, he might even purr.

But Sanson’s preoccupied, staring into his half-empty coffee mug, without so much as a glance in his direction. Fine. Guydelot props himself up on one elbow, content for the moment simply to look, to admire: Sanson’s beautiful in the morning light - the way the golden sunrise picks out the deep rich tones in his dark hair, spilling unbound across his shoulders; the way his skin seems to glow, making dark constellations of all the little marks Guydelot left scattered across Sanson’s neck and collarbones... 

Desire stirs again. Desire, and something else: something both gentle and fierce, something less familiar, something more than a little dangerous... like a banked flame, waiting to burst into an inferno if he looks at it too long. Guydelot doesn’t want to call it what it is, what he  _ knows _ it is... or at least what it might become, given enough time. Given enough encouragement.

Looking at Sanson like this, tender and quietly hungry, feels a little like encouragement.

But Sanson could be a statue carved by a master, sitting there with the blankets puddled around his waist, still as stone - his eyes linger on the mug in his hands, the smallest of frowns tugging at his swollen and kiss-bruised lips... and all at once, Guydelot’s heart tightens unexpectedly, clenched in a vice.

_Oh hells, don’t say you regret it._

Wouldn’t hardly be the first time someone had slept with him and regretted it in the morning, and he and Sanson Smyth were as unlikely a pair as could be - not too long ago, they’d not even been on speaking terms, never mind  _ civil _ speaking terms. The spark that ignited between them was unlooked-for. Small wonder if it’d burned itself out somewhere between last night’s explorative fervor and the gentle, drowsy morning sex. Now Sanson’s properly awake, and has a chance to look back at the night before, and... what? Question it? Regret it?

Sanson’s trembling, Guydelot belatedly realizes: nearly imperceptibly, visible only by the ripples in the coffee cup, and the faintest tremor in the bed.

_Don’t say you regret it._

“Cold?” Unable to sit still, Guydelot instead shifts to sit behind Sanson, winding his arms around his still-silent lover. He waits for a flinch, waits for Sanson to withdraw, waits for  _ I’m sorry, this was a mistake _ ... but instead Sanson releases a shuddery breath, as though he’d been  _ holding _ his breath, and relaxes - only a fraction, but relaxes nonetheless - into Guydelot’s embrace.

Not regret, then.

Guydelot could sing.

He settles for humming, resting his cheek against the top of Sanson’s head, strands of tousled dark hair tickling his lips. It surfaces again, that  _ thing  _ that isn’t just desire, lurking somewhere just out of sight, ready to tangle his heart up, and he wonders if it might not be so bad. He could tumble headlong into it - into  _ love, _ or at least something like it - with Sanson; why not? He’s been reckless with every other part of himself. Why not his heart? Why shouldn’t he hand his heart over into the keeping of this fussy, bossy, pompous little son of a bitch? He likes the idea, warms to it.

“What  _ is _ this? What are we doing?”

_Love,_ Guydelot doesn’t say, but he thinks it, and he smiles against the top of Sanson’s head. “How do you mean?”

“This.” A hesitation. “Us.”

_Us._ He likes the sound of that. Simple, clean, uncomplicated. Sums it all up even better than “love,” which comes with a lot of nasty strings attached, a lot of weight he’s not ready to carry, not yet. Someday, maybe. Someday. For now, though, he thinks  _ us _ will do just fine. He just needs to persuade  _ Sanson _ of that. And he thinks maybe, just maybe, he can.

_ Don’t make it more complicated than it needs to be, Sanson the Stiff. _


End file.
